Had trouble with it. Mix of cultures: the minuet, the music; the sword duel; the ruffled dress; the jerk who rented Inara, the way she let him rent her.

Also had trouble following the dialogue in general, even with closed captions, because it went by so fast. (An aside: You young people out there: how in Sam Hill do you understand each other when you talk so fast?! I have to tell my young coworkers, "Slow down. Put spaces between the words. Don't drop syllables." They sigh.)

Great spots: the actors speaking the dialogue so well while dancing; that must have been tough to do! Sir Warrick's character a real plus, please let us see him again. Badger is a wonderful character. Mal punching out, well, anybody, and with such glee. Jayne not troubled by slave-transport or any other kind of business, if it brings in significant money.

Mal was cruel to Kaylee with his sheep remark. I wonder who wrote that line, or if he/she stole it from a book. Mal deserved the dirty looks and under-breath reproaches. That he bought her the dress was nice, but that won't wipe out the sin of hurting her feelings. However, it was in character for Mal, which is what makes him a rare bird on TV this season. He may have a heart of gold, but it's 10K or 14K, not bullion.

Nice to see Zoe and Wash having a private moment.

Most of you don't care for Book, either because he's older or because he hasn't done much, yet, but I like him and am sorry that he had so little to do this episode.

River was a jewel. Ms. Glau showed her acting stripes.

Inara bothers me a lot. Her profession appears modeled on the geishas, the art-persons, but geishas have managers, servants, and coworkers, while Inara does it all herself. I think she would need more support to keep up her business and her morale. This episode made clear the difference between valuing an object because it is expensive, and valuing a person because he/she is priceless. Mal wants Inara to be priceless, valued only for her self. Inara regularly sells her time and attention for money, and those who spend the money, such as the Jerk, want "value" in return. She must have known he was a Jerk before this; why did she even lead him to believe she might stay with him (for money)? None of it makes sense to me.

The sword duel: in the 1800s they duelled with guns. This series is so gun-heavy, wouldn't it have made more sense to use guns? Or, to throw another newt's eye into the wacky culture mix, slingshots? bows and arrows?

Quote:The oddest thing for me was the holographic balls. What would be the point of that? Keeping them from being stolen or used as weapons?

Yes, I forgot about those. If it's the Firefly equivalent of a video arcade game, you'd think the balls would be real and the cues virtual. I'm showing my age again: safety first? Very nice little touch, however: another instance of forcing the pace to stagger for a micro-, nano-, picosecond.

In the old dueling days the aggrieved party had the choice of weapons.

It seems Mal would be the aggrieved party since Wing took his punch to be a challenge to a duel, not a smudge on Wing's honor that needed to be taken care off. Wing's insult would be the reason for the duel.

Of course in the old days they did not have to fight to the death either. Many duels ended with both combatants alive. Losing and living through a duel was not seen as cowardly. It was seen as very honorable, particularly if the other combatant was good at dueling.

Once the duel had taken place honor was satisfied and the former combatants could even be friends if they wanted to.

Quote:Originally posted by Brolan:
Of course in the old days they did not have to fight to the death either. Many duels ended with both combatants alive.

Do you think Mal would have been dead or disabled if Inara hadn't made her plea? I was surprised that Mal got away, if it can be called that, with his using her plea as a chance to turn the table on his opponent. The Jerk was a small-minded member of a ritualized upper crust: would there be rules for what Mal did? (of course the alternative wasn't pleasant!). In other words, I'm confused. In "real" life (what we read in primary sources, not what we live now), duels were often illegal even when they were popular, and seconds often tried to dissuade the combatants, tried to create as many opportunities as possible for painless apologies.

I'm hitting all your posts today...(it's not intentional) But I was suprised too that Mal got away with that trick to turn the tables in the duel- pretty slippery!
Of course it wasn't planned, per se, but it was not a clean fight, either.
But Mal's not a squeaky-clean hero, either (thank goodness).

With this 6th aired episode, we see another facet of River's talents - or is it just more mind-reading? She doesn't get into Badger's personal details until she touches him.
And Kaylee collects the largest cohort of admirers of any we've seen so far.

Wonderful guest Actors. TTJ had Gregg Henry and Crow has other roles, but not normally recognizable. The Commander in Bushwhacked and Christina Hendricks (Angel) are somewhat known, but now we have besides some new guy Badger, Larry Frame and Larry Pennel (Dash Riprock).

The logic of flirtation between Mal and Inara is a bit confusing.

I was assumed Zoe and Wash were getting laid, but now we see so onscreen.

Starting episodes in bars seems a trend, as well as fights. They likely have actual alcohol in these places, but the crew don't seem to gather at tea houses.

They also imply they've lately been to Persephone, which was also referenced in the Bushwhacked interrogations.

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